Thursday, November 20, 2008

I'm back

After traveling for 36 hours, not counting the train ride to Kiev, I'm back in Forest Grove. Since I had to clear all of my blogs with Peace Corps while I was over there, they were naturally a lot less funny; I promise that will improve. I want to make something clear first, though--I really enjoyed my time in Ukraine. On the flights home I re-read my journals from my service and about 90% of the things I wrote were positive observations about Ukraine and the Peace Corps. So, when I write something about how the Post Office drove me crazy or how people never picked up their trash, please remember that those moments were the exceptions to the rule.

Overall, I HIGHLY recommend the Peace Corps. Before I joined, I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life, I had few practical skills and I had just gotten out of a long and largely unhealthy relationship. Now I know exactly what I want to do, I'm qualified to do dozens of things and I'm in a great relationship with an AMAZING woman. Peace Corps is the cause of all of that. So, like I said, I recommend the Peace Corps.

That said, when Jessica and I were at JFK eating fast food, we just looked around and cried about how happy we were to be back. I firmly believe that everyone should live abroad for a long period of time just so they appreciate how fucking great we have it here. I could and eventually will go into details about all of this but right now just know that I'm grateful to be home. I love and miss you all!